During two years with a start-up, I was exposed to several markets in which the company wanted to sell its products. While they tried to break into these markets, they survived on grants, resulting from two completely different types of proposal: the Small Business Innovations Research (SBIR) grant, funded by the US Government, and requests for partnership for technology demonstration to private industry. The company encountered obstacles (which it often overcame, though there are no guarantees!) in each proposal.

In each case, it was a matter of answering specific customer questions even before the work is performed. Customers know a grant or technology demonstration might not result in a product ready to market. But if all parties involved can agree on what the word "success" means, they understand what it will take to get that product ready!

There's often a difference in the definition of "success" between you and your customer. The proposal process gives you a chance to clear that up. Here's what the customer asks:

1. How much does it cost?
2. How long will it last?
3. WILL IT WORK?
4. How long before your company can ship it?
5. IS IT SAFE?
6. What shape is your company in? How strong is your management team? Do you have enough resources?
7. CAN WE COUNT ON YOU?
8. Can you provide customer service?

The questions in CAPS are the most critical -- and they're also the questions that you can't answer to their satisfaction in a proposal. The customers reserve judgment to themselves on those issues. You can answer the rest, and the diligence you show in your answers will help decide how the customers deal with the CAPS questions.

That won't be all! In order for customers to be satisfied with your new technology, they may want at the very least to "kick the tires." And they may want you to perform a battery of tests -- sometimes they'll pay and sometimes they won't. And they'll certainly want to become familiar with your key personnel.

There's an inherent difficulty in getting a proposal written by a very small company accepted by a very large company. In my case, the company was interested in a strategic partnership. The company felt that these were a partner's most desirable characteristics:

• someone the customer knows
• someone reputable, with a proven track record
• someone with deep pockets

All this goes back to what I once called The First Law of New Technology: "nobody wants to be the first to buy it." Customers were alike in these ways:

• They don't want to buy a product, they want to hire a service -- a service which just happens to be performed primarily by the product.
• They don't want to be a Guinea pig for new technology; they want the product to have been thoroughly tested.
• They don't want to bear the aftermath of failure -- they don't even want to bear the aftermath of success! (For instance, waste disposal after the product works.)

We are all the same way. We go to a restaurant because we don't want to have to do the prep work, cook the meal, or clean up the dishes -- no matter how good the meal.

Strangely enough (perhaps), potential strategic partners have the same concerns the customers have -- and they'll ask the same questions, perhaps wanting answers in greater detail. In working with you, they risk not only money and customer opinion (as do you), but also market share.